An Israeli official has accused Barack Obama of colluding in a “shameful move against Israel at the UN” over a planned security council vote on Israeli illegal settlements.

In striking language underlining the long-running depth of hostility between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration, the unnamed official accused Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, of “secretly cooking up with Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution”.

The comments emerged in the midst of 24 hours of extraordinary diplomacy that saw the US president-elect, Donald Trump – who has yet to be sworn into office – undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president and intervene to see a vote on the resolution on Thursday evening postponed.

That appears to have been only a temporary respite as it emerged that other members of the security council were pushing ahead with a vote on the same text later on Friday.

At the heart of the issue has been an Egypt-drafted resolution that calls for the immediate halt of illegal Israeli settlement building, which it appeared the Obama administration was prepared not to veto in a breach of the US’s long record of vetoing resolutions criticising Israel.



This prompted Netanyahu to ask for help from Trump and his transition team and also saw Israel put pressure on the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, behind the scenes to postpone a vote.

Explaining the Israeli moves, the unidentified Israeli official said: “President Obama and secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN. The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory.”

He continued by calling it “an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN”, adding: “President Obama could declare his willingness to veto this resolution in an instant but instead is pushing it. This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN.”

Reacting to news the resolution might be go to a vote on Friday, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said: “We call on the United States to stand by us and we expect our greatest ally to continue with its long-standing policy and to veto this resolution.”

Responding to the Israeli accusations, the Obama administration strongly denied it had been involved in any of the discussions around the draft.

The furious Israeli comments emerged after the disclosure of the details of the contacts between Netanyahu, the Trump transition team and Cairo on Thursday seeking to have the vote cancelled or delayed.



The timing of some of the contacts – between Netanyahu and Trump’s transition team, and between Trump’s team and Egypt – remains unclear, but it appears Trump called Sisi after the cancellation of the vote.



Unlike Trump’s other recent interventions in US foreign policy, which have largely flagged up his often contradictory intentions, on this occasion he appears to have deliberately interposed himself in an issue of current US and international diplomacy.



Sisi’s spokesman, Alaa Yousef, said on Friday that the two had agreed to give Trump’s incoming administration a chance to tackle the issue.

“During the call, they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East and, in that context, the draft resolution in front of the security council on Israeli settlement,” Yousef said.

In an unintended slip referring to Trump’s status, he added: “The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new US administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement.”

In more evidence of the growing crisis around the resolution, the hawkish US senator Lindsey Graham warned that any country receiving US aid that voted for the resolution would see moves against it in Congress to have that aid suspended or significantly reduced.

Speculation that the US might not deploy its veto had been fuelled by the Obama administration’s frustration over recent political moves by Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition, not least over proposed measures to retroactively legalise 100 outposts built on private Palestinian land.



Israeli settlements have long been seen as a stumbling block in peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state. The UN maintains that settlements are illegal but its officials have reported a surge in construction over the past months.