The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly voted against President Donald Trump’s unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
The text says that any decisions regarding the status of the city are “null and void” and must be cancelled.
The non-binding resolution was approved by 128 states, with 35 abstaining, and nine voting against.
The vote came after a redoubling of threats by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who said that Washington would “remember” which countries “disrespected” America by voting against it.
The nine who voted against the resolution were the US, Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.
Among the 35 countries who abstained were Canada and Mexico.
Those voting in favour included the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia and the UK), as well as key US allies in the Muslim majority world.
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There were 21 countries who did not turn up for the vote.
While support for the resolution was somewhat less than Palestinian officials had hoped, the meagre tally of just nine votes in support of the US and Israeli position was a serious diplomatic blow for President Trump.
Immediately after the vote, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the result as a “victory for Palestine”.
The Palestinians’ UN envoy, Riyad Mansour, described the result as a “massive setback” for the US.
Mr Mansour told AFP: “They made it about them. They did not make it about Jerusalem, so when you make it about them and to only be able to get nine votes to say ‘no’ to it, I think it was a complete failure for their campaign.”
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the UN vote as “out of hand”.
A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office read: “Israel thanks President Trump for his unequivocal position in favour of Jerusalem and thanks the countries that voted together with Israel, together with the truth”.
