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BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights is dismayed by the US’s opposition to a UN Security Council Resolution that seeks to affirm the illegality of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). The US’s position demonstrates its continued neglect of international law and human rights norms and its incapacity to act as an 'honest' peace broker in the decades-old colonial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Security Council Resolution, which has 120 co-sponsors, deliberately reflects well-established US policy on settlements in order to avoid a US veto. That the US would nevertheless veto this resolution reflects its unwillingness to hold Israel to account for its violations of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, sovereignty and return. Instead, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice have insisted that a Security Council Resolution is counterproductive to the peace process and that the controversy over settlements should be settled in direct negotiations. Given the US’s dismal record in halting settlement expansion and its inability to pressure Israel to extend its 10-month settlement moratorium, despite offering lucrative incentives, the exercise of the US veto gives Israel the green light to continue and accelerate the growth of its colonial settlements.

Since the advent of the peace process in 1991, illegal Israeli settlements have more than doubled and have been accompanied by a complex network of road blocks, check points, the systematic expropriation of Palestinian lands, destruction of Palestinian homes and the displacement of thousands of Palestinian families. Moreover, under the veneer of a 'peace process', Israel has built an Apartheid Wall within the occupied West Bank in an attempt to circumscribe its illegal settlements and solidify its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, in defiance of a 2004 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion deeming the route of the Wall, the settlements, and the associated regime of restrictions and closures to be illegal. Far from bringing a viable resolution to this conflict, 20 years of the 'peace process' has afforded Israel impunity to continue its colonial and Apartheid policies and provided cover to further expropriate and de-facto annex Palestinian land.

The US’s veto continues its legacy of shielding Israel from accountability. Between 1972 and 1997, the US used its veto 32 times to shield Israel from rebuke; amounting to nearly half of the 69 vetoes the US has cast since the founding of the UN. The US’s insistence that accountability to international law and human rights norms are mutually exclusive to the peace process has undermined the viability of establishing peace and has been especially deleterious to Palestinians who, stateless, living under occupation and exile, lack the international protection otherwise afforded by humanitarian and human rights law.

By vetoing this resolution, the US will cast the final nail in the coffin of the terminally ill peace process and destroy any lingering doubts regarding its credibility as a peace broker. The US’s intransigent diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel and opposition to international law and human rights norms further amplifies the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel as the most effective method by which Israel's respect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and peace can to be achieved.