US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) accused the Biden Administration of seeking to "undermine" the incoming Trump Administration and Republican Congress and Senate through a United Nations Security Council draft resolution calling for the IDF to completely withdraw from Gaza and for a ceasefire without also calling on Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza to release the 101 Israeli and foreign hostages they continue to hold.
"This resolution is just one of several assaults on Israel being planned at the United Nations, meant to preemptively and permanently undermine the incoming Trump administration and Republican Congress," Cruz told Fox News Digital.
"I will work with my Republican colleagues and with President Trump to take whatever steps are necessary to undo these measures, including fundamentally reevaluating our relationship with the U.N. and the Palestinians, broadly cutting aid, imposing sanctions on specific officials responsible for those measures, and countering governments and NGOs pushing or implementing them," he added.
The UN Security Council met yesterday (Monday) to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including a resolution being proposed by the Council members regarding a ceasefire in Gaza. The draft resolution is expected to be voted on in the coming days by the Security Council and does not include a condition for the return of the hostages, nor does it refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization
The resolution submitted by Algeria calls for a complete end to the war against Hamas. US officials have reportedly softened some of the language in the resolution to remove the possibility of it triggering Chapter IIV of the UN Charter, which would make the resolution legally binding.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon strongly criticized the wording of the proposed resolution, saying, "Any resolution that does not condition the ceasefire on the release of the hostages means abandoning the 101 hostages to the hell of the terrorist monsters.”
He added, "The decision being promoted in this Council only strengthens Hamas and terrorism and abandons the hostages. We cannot allow the UN to tie the hands of the State of Israel from protecting its citizens, and we will not stop fighting until we return all the kidnapped men and women home."
Cruz is not the only one concerned that the US may refuse to veto this resolution in a manner similar to the Obama Administration's abstention in late 2016 on an anti-Israel resolution that declared any Jewish presence over the 'Green Line' illegal, even at the Western Wall.
Professor Anne Bayefsky, President of the Human Rights Voices human rights NGO, told Arutz Sheva - Israel National News last week that "The Biden administration is now working fast and furiously to Trump-proof its disastrous Middle East foreign policy. Its partner of choice is the global epicenter of Israel-bashing and antisemitism, the United Nations."
"The template for ignoring the will of the American electorate by enabling the United Nations to do the dirty work of a lame-duck President was written by President Obama. In late December 2016, he was photographed playing golf while his UN Ambassador Samantha Power surreptitiously finalized a Security Council resolution that upended decades of bipartisan support for a negotiated settlement of key issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict," she noted.
According to Prof. Bayefsky, "This time around, the production of a new resolution to do lasting damage to Israel and mount an end-run around the election of Donald Trump is peeking through. A version of a first draft was leaked to Al Jazeera and, in response to a press inquiry, the State Department announced: 'We will look at any resolution that comes up before the Security Council.'”