US vetoes UN Security Council resolution rejecting Trump's Jerusalem move; 14 states backed motion

UNITED NATIONS: The United States, exercising its veto power, quashed a UN Security Council resolution calling for withdrawal of the President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital.

All other 14 members of the Council voted in favour of the Egyptian-sponsored resolution, leaving the united States totally isolated.

"What we witnessed here in the Security Council is an insult. It won't be forgotten," an angry US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned after the vote.

This was the first time the United States exercised its veto power at the 15-member Council since Trump took office.

"We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance," she said. "The fact that this veto is being done in defence of American sovereignty and in defense of America's role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the lone voice praising the USaction. "Thank you, Ambassador Haley You lit a candle of truth. You dispel the darkness. One defeated the many. Truth defeated lies. Thank you, President Trump," Netanyahu tweeted.

The UN draft resolution affirmed "that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council."

Trump abruptly reversed decades of US policy this month when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, sparking of outrage from Palestinians and the Arab world and concern among Washington's western allies.

"In the wake of the decision of the United States the situation has become more tense with an increase in incidents, notably rockets fired from Gaza and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces," UN Middle Trump also plans to move the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

The draft UN resolution had also called upon all countries to refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem. The French Ambassador to the United Nations, Fran'ois Delattre, told reporters as he entered the Security Council chambers, where the vote on the resolution was held.

"This Egyptian draft only reaffirms clearly the basis of international consensus, international law."

Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of Britain expressed a similar position. "Our view is that the issue of Jerusalem is a final status issue, that Jerusalem should be a shared capital for Israelis and for Palestinians, and the U.K. Embassy, for now, will remain in Tel Aviv," he told reporters before the vote.

Israel seized eastern Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has declared the entire city to be its capital.

The Security Council vote came just two days before Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to visit Jerusalem. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who had planned to meet Pence, canceled that meeting in protest of the American change of position on Jerusalem.