Haley Hosts Party For Countries That Didn’t Back Anti-Trump U.N. Jerusalem Vote
The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, hosted a reception for countries that didn’t back a resolution criticizing President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Image by @USUN / Twitter
(JTA) — Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, hosted a reception for the 64 countries that voted against or abstained from voting on a resolution condemning President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The “Friends of the U.S.” reception was held Wednesday night in New York at the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
“It’s easy for friends to be with you in the good times, but it’s the friends who are with you during the challenging times that will never be forgotten. Thank you to the 64,” the U.S. mission posted on Facebook along with photos of some of the attendees.
Haley extended the invitation after the General Assembly passed a resolution Dec. 21 condemning Trump’s Jerusalem pronouncement two weeks earlier.
Nine countries voted against the resolution, including Israel, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras and Togo, and 35 abstained, including the six EU member states Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Latvia. The rest of the European Union was among the 128 nations that voted in favor.
The representatives of 21 countries were absent from the vote, which was the 10th time in U.N. history that the General Assembly was convened for an emergency vote. They included Kenya, which was the fifth-largest recipient of U.S. aid last year, Georgia and Ukraine, all of which have close ties with the United States.
Trump greeted the guests in a prerecorded video, The Jerusalem Post reported, saying the votes by their countries were “noted and greatly appreciated.” He also said the United States “remains committed to achieving lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
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
