“Every American president, since the beginning of settlements 50 years ago, from Johnson and Nixon, down through Bush and Obama, has opposed Israel's policy on settlements,” George Mitchell said. | Getty Obama’s former Mideast envoy: U.S. should have vetoed UN resolution

President Barack Obama’s former special envoy to the Middle East said Tuesday that Obama would have been wise to veto last week’s United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

“I do think, if I might make a few other points on this issue, that President Obama would have been wise to veto this resolution,” George Mitchell said in an interview on MSNBC. “Not because of the policy implications but because of the timing and the circumstance that it leads to with respect to trying to get the parties together.”


Mitchell argued that because there is an incoming administration, which will ultimately decide its own Middle East foreign policy, Obama should have postponed the vote if possible and, if not, vetoed it.

Mitchell, however, did push back against critics of the move, arguing that American opposition to Israeli settlement building is nothing new and has been condemned by every administration in recent memory.

“Every American president, since the beginning of settlements 50 years ago, from Johnson and Nixon, down through Bush and Obama, has opposed Israel's policy on settlements,” he said.

He went on to say that statements made in the television media that Obama failed to “protect Israel as other presidents have at the U.N. Security Council” are “completely false” and said there have been more than 75 resolutions critical of Israel over the past five decades that have been allowed to pass by every U.S. administration.

“So I think much is being made of it that is false,” Mitchell said, “but it would have been wise, I think, to defer this if possible and, if not, to veto it."