The United States last Thursday night vetoed a Security Council resolution which deplored Israel’s “provocative acts which have violated the sanctity of the sanctuary of the Haram Al-Sharif,” the mosque complex on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The vote was 13-1 with one abstention, Thailand. The U.S. veto was its second this month on an anti-Israel resolution. The first was on a resolution condemning Israel’s actions in south Lebanon.
The 15-member Security Council opened its debate January 22 at the request of Morocco, as the chairman of the Arab Group at the UN, to discuss recent confrontations on the Temple Mount between a group of visiting Knesset members and angry Arab crowds. Addressing the Council Thursday night, Israeli Ambassador Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the Arabs’ charges that the Israeli visitors desecrated the Al Aksa mosque. In fact, he said, the Knesset members visited the Temple Mount after they had made arrangements with the Waqf, the Moslem religious authority in charge of administering Moslem holy places in Jerusalem. He added that the MKs were attacked by an Arab crowd at Solomon’s Stable, a site which, according to Netanyahu, “had no religious significance.”
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