After Vote, Israel Halts Aid to Angola

After halting foreign assistance to Senegal over the weekend, Israel will next take aim at Angola for voting in favor of Friday’s U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Israel’s ambassador to Angola, Oren Rosenblatt, was instructed by the Foreign Ministry Tuesday to inform his host government that Israel will shut down an international aid agency it operates in that country as a result of the vote. The agency primarily engaged in bringing individuals from Angola to Israel in order to gain exposure to advanced agricultural and manufacturing technology.

While not apologizing for his government’s vote in favor of Resolution 2334, Russia’s deputy ambassador in Israel, Alexei Drovinan, told Army Radio Tuesday that Russia would have preferred not to vote on the resolution as it was presented. “Russia had several issues with the resolution’s wording and the manner in which the decision was made,” he said. “We wanted to delay the vote. Unfortunately no other country accepted our stance, and the resolution was put up for a vote. We are also dissatisfied with the fact that the resolution dealt with just one aspect of the conflict.”

In a statement, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the foreign policy of U.S. President Barack Obama “evokes aversion of the entire world. I think this man [Obama] and his team – naturally, speaking about the man we mean the team which has proved to be bad for all on the global arena. They have failed to fulfill their obligations taken before some countries, they have failed to fulfill what they were commissioned to, including by the American people on the global arena,” she said in the statement quoted by Russian news agency Tass.

On Sunday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman ordered that Israel’s coordination officers in Yehudah and Shomron halt their cooperation with their Palestinian Authority counterparts. The move means that further authorization of increases in the number of PA Arabs authorized to work in Israel is to be frozen. Work was begun on authorization of some 6,000 additional PA workers last week. With that, the IDF will continue to cooperate with PA police to prevent terror attacks, Liberman’s office said.

The Security Council resolution that was adopted late Friday – by a vote of 14-0, with one abstention – condemns “ all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” and expresses grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines.” It also lays the basis for sanctions against Israel, “calling upon all States to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” Included in those “territories” is all Yerushalayim neighborhoods built since 1967, including Ramot, Gilo, Ramat Shlomo, as well as the “settlement blocs.” The construction in these places is “illegal” and violates international law.