JERUSALEM — Undeterred by a defeat at the United Nations, Israel's government said Monday that it would move ahead with thousands of new homes in disputed areas and warned nations against further action, declaring that Israel does not "turn the other cheek."

Just a few days after the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn Israeli settlements, Jerusalem's municipal government signaled that it would not back down: The city intends to approve 600 housing units in the predominantly Palestinian eastern section of town on Wednesday in what a top official called a first installment of 5,600 new homes.

The defiant posture reflected anger among Israel's pro-settlement political leaders, who not only blamed the United States for failing to block the council resolution, but also claimed to have secret intelligence showing that President Barack Obama's team had orchestrated it. U.S. officials strongly denied the claim, but the sides seem poised for more conflict until Obama hands over the presidency to Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at Security Council countries by curbing diplomatic contacts, recalling envoys, cutting off aid and summoning the U.S. ambassador for a scolding. He canceled a planned visit this week by Ukraine's prime minister even as he expressed concern Monday that Obama was planning more action at the United Nations before his term ends next month.

The prime minister defended his retaliation. "Israel is a country with national pride, and we do not turn the other cheek," he said.

Palestinian leaders made clear Monday that they would use the resolution in international bodies to press their case against Israel. With the imprimatur of a U.N. finding of illegality, they said they would campaign to require that other countries not just label products made in the settlements, but ban them.

Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, outlined other steps the Palestinians could take, using the resolution to press the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli leaders, file lawsuits on behalf of specific Palestinians displaced by settlements and urge Switzerland to determine whether Israel is violating the Geneva Conventions.</s>FILE -- In this Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Israel is stepping up its attacks on the Obama administration, saying it has proof from Arab sources that the U.S. actively helped craft a U.N. resolution that declared Israeli settlements illegal. A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has "ironclad information" that the White House helped draft the language of the resolution. Citing Arab sources, he says the White House "pushed hard" for its passage. (Dan Balilty/Pool photo via AP, File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday ordered a temporary suspension of relations with the 12 United Nations Security Council members who voted in favor of a resolution which says Israel's settlements in the West Bank "had no legal validity."

Netanyahu personally met with and scolded 10 of the ambassadors from the dozen countries who voted for the resolution that says the settlement constituted "a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security."

Netanyahu says he will not have a working relationship with the governments of the countries – Angola, Britain, China, Egypt, France, Japan, New Zealand, Senegal, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay and Russia.

The United States is not on that list because they abstained from voting on the resolution. Israeli officials say they have proof from Arab sources that the United States helped to craft the resolution they abstained from voting for.

Here’s what other media outlets are saying about the development.

JERUSALEM (AP) – “Israel is stepping up its attacks on the Obama administration, saying it has proof from Arab sources that the U.S. actively helped craft a U.N. resolution that declared Israeli settlements illegal.

David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Israel has "ironclad information" that the White House helped draft the language of the resolution. Citing Arab sources, he said Tuesday that the White House "pushed hard" for its passage.”

Israel braces for more tensions with US as Kerry plans major speech

“Israel is bracing for yet another potential clash with the Obama administration in the final weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, as Secretary of State John Kerry prepares to follow up last week’s anti-settlement U.N. censure with a major address on the U.S. vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Times of Israel and Israel’s Channel 2 report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned about an Obama administration bid to have the Security Council endorse principles for a Palestinian state, and is reaching out to allies in the U.S. Congress and the incoming Trump administration to try and deter further action against Israel.”

“In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel was limiting its "work contacts with the 10 relevant embassies here, as well as travels of officials from Israel to those countries ... until otherwise decided." (Two other countries were added to the list after this story was posted)

These countries were Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay and Spain, said Nahshon.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank along with east Jerusalem — home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians — as parts of their future state. Israel says settlement activities in the territories, which were captured by Israel in the 1967 war, should be agreed upon in future peace talks.”

“The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city.

Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel has also described as “shameful” the decision of its long-standing ally the United States to abstain in the vote rather than wield its veto. The Obama administration is a strong opponent of the settlements.”

Israel urges Jews to leave France as Benjamin Netanyahu continues to lash out after UN vote

“Israel’s defense minister has urged Jews to leave France and move to the Jewish state as the Israeli government continued to lash out at the international community in the wake of a UN resolution criticizing its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Four days after the US allowed the UN Security Council to censure Israeli settlement building, Israel’s government is on a heated rhetorical campaign against the 12 countries that voted against it.”

“Israel on Tuesday intensified its criticism of the Obama administration for allowing the United Nations to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, and vowed to press ahead with new construction in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.

David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel has “ironclad information” that the White House helped draft the resolution, the Associated Press reported. The Obama administration denied the allegation.”</s>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned the US ambassador and launched a scathing attack Sunday on the Obama administration after its refusal to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel's settlements in the West Bank. The United States abstained on the resolution, allowing it to pass, rather than vetoing it - as it usually does with resolutions it sees as overly critical of Israel, leading to US Ambassador Daniel Shapiro being summoned, an Israeli official told CNN Sunday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at WMAL-AM Washington.</s>Last Friday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2334, with a dramatic abstention by the Obama Administration. The resolution called on Palestinian leaders to take “immediate steps to prevent all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror,” and refrain from “incitement and inflammatory rhetoric.” Its real target, though, was Israel’s settlement project, which, the resolution sharply claimed, has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

Later in the day on Friday, I spoke to Robert Malley, the special assistant to the President on the National Security Council, the senior adviser for the campaign against , and the White House coördinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf. In February, 2011, the Obama Administration vetoed a similar U.N. condemnation of settlements—opposing fourteen other members of the Security Council and a hundred and twenty co-sponsors from the General Assembly. Why abstain now, I asked Malley, and not then? “A real difference is that efforts to advance negotiations were ongoing in 2011,” Malley told me. “We were concerned not to interfere with a process that had some prospect of progressing. That’s not the case since Secretary Kerry’s efforts in 2014. We are at an impasse. There is no prospect of resumption of serious meaningful talks between the sides, so the argument that a U.N. resolution would interfere with negotiations doesn’t hold much water.”

In speaking of an “impasse,” Malley was exercising tact. The most salient change, he went on, is the attitude of the Israeli government toward the construction of settlements, which “has accelerated since the 2011 veto—tens of thousands of units approved, and in different stages of tendering and construction.” Malley pointed to the so-called normalization bill to legalize outposts and settlement units built on private Palestinian land, which is being considered by the Knesset. Such building is currently illegal under Israeli law, and has put the Israeli government at odds with the Supreme Court. “The legislation would represent a sea change,” Malley told me. “The Prime Minister of Israel just stated that his government was more committed to settlements than any in Israeli history. And one of his ministers”—Naftali Bennett, the Education Minister and the leader of the right-wing Jewish Home Party—“said the era of the two-state solution is over. So the resolution reflects not so much a change in President Obama’s position as in the Israeli government’s.”

Minutes after the resolution passed, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gave his response. “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” he tweeted. He plans to nominate David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who has raised millions of dollars for an Israeli settlement, to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Trump has also promised to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a symbolic endorsement of the Israeli right’s claim to the entire city—although his designated Secretaries of State and Defense may have something to say about provoking allies like Jordan. The Walla news site, generally supportive of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reported last month that Israeli officials are hopeful that General Michael Flynn—Trump’s designated National Security Adviser, who has close ties to Israel’s defense establishment—will work with Congress to rescind the restrictions Obama put on the ten-year, thirty-eight-billion-dollar Israeli aid package that was approved this fall.

But Trump’s power as President, however consequential, cannot cancel the power that other countries have in the conflict, as Netanyahu seemed to acknowledge in the bitterness of his response. On Saturday, an Israeli official told Barak Ravid, of Haaretz, that the resolution “revealed the true face of the Obama Administration”; the next day, the Prime Minister accused the Administration of carrying out an “underhanded, anti-Israel maneuver.” On Monday, Ron Dermer, the Israeli envoy in Washington, told CNN that Israel has proof that the Obama Administration was “behind” the resolution, and would “present this evidence to the new Administration through the appropriate channels.” Malley seemed fatigued by the prospect of having to fend off such charges. “Contrary to the claim made by some Israeli officials, we did not cook up this resolution, we did not chase after it,” he told me. “Secretary Kerry averaged roughly one phone call a week to the Israeli Prime Minister over the last four years—almost four hundred—to plead, to warn, against the path his government was on. Not only did settlement-construction activities continue apace, they were accelerated.”

Recent polls conducted by the Palestinian public-opinion expert Khalil Shikaki suggest that support for a two-state solution among Palestinians in the territories is significantly depressed, not because of ideology (only about a quarter of respondents support Hamas) but because of skepticism of Israeli and American intentions. “Settlements have always been at the heart of this distrust,” Shikaki told me in Tel Aviv last Thursday. For Malley, the point was self-evident and applied to Israelis as well: “What has dropped precipitously is confidence on either side that the other side is serious about reaching a solution. It is very hard for Palestinians to believe that the Israeli Prime Minister believes in a two-state solution in which the Palestinians would have a viable state at the same time as the territory on which that state is to be built is increasingly encroached upon—not just through settlements but through home demolitions, and the refusal to grant permits for Palestinian building. Similarly, it has been very hard for Israelis to believe that the Palestinians believe in a two-state solution at the same time as they experience terrorism and hear calls for martyrdom.”

The peace process has subtly shifted from bilateral negotiations, in which envoys hammer out principles for agreement and bring these to the international community, to one in which the principles and possible impediments are understood and Western states other than the U.S. may choose to put pressure on the parties. Earlier in his career, Malley was special assistant on Arab-Israeli affairs to President Bill Clinton. He participated in the Camp David Summit of 2000, between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority, and helped to prepare the “Clinton parameters” for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, which were presented to envoys of Barak and Arafat on December 23rd, sixteen years before, to the day. “The resolution is not that. We are not saying, ‘Here’s a plan, take it, do this,’ ” Malley said. “Think of this resolution as a wake-up call to both sides: here are the things you have to stop doing if you want to preserve the chance of a two-state solution. We have to ring the alarm bells.”

Resolution 2334 was passed under chapter six of the U.N. charter, dealing with “Pacific Settlement of Disputes,” which involves recommendations and diplomatic action, not chapter seven, dealing with “Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression,” which can involve sanctions and even military peacekeeping. But softer power matters here. Israel and Europe trade about forty-five billion dollars’ worth of products and services annually, and exchange crucial intellectual capital, as well. This will continue after January 20th. As I’ve argued before, sanctions of a sort may be imposed on Israel by any member of a European corporation’s product-development team—someone who, with this resolution at her back, simply refuses to travel to Tel Aviv. Rightists have claimed that Israel could eventually escape European penalties by reducing the proportion of trade there. But Russia and China, where trade, especially in military technology, has been growing, also voted for the resolution—and, on the Palestinian question, they are unlikely to break ranks.

More important in the short term, the resolution draws a clear distinction between residents of the settlements, along with the products produced there, and Israeli residents and products, and urges member states to distinguish between these “in their relevant dealings.” The E.U. has already decided that Israel must identify products from the settlements with a label and has proposed to exclude the settlements from free-trade privileges. The new resolution invites all member states to impose similar restrictions. It also suggests that states may impose entry restrictions on residents of the settlements who are travelling with an Israeli passport, or impose restrictions on European companies or banks doing business with Israeli companies with settlement-based enterprises in their supply chains. It requires the Security Council to consider a quarterly report on settlement growth.

Ronen Bergman, a senior military columnist for Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest daily newspaper, told Israel’s Channel Ten on Friday night that the resolution may even boost Palestinian threats to bring the settlement project to the International Criminal Court. “Because it connects the settlements to the Geneva Conventions, it exposes settler leaders to international prosecutions, including at the Hague,” Bergman explained. As Malley noted, the Obama Administration opposes action against Israelis in the I.C.C., and has even argued that the Palestinians should not be eligible to accede to the Rome Statute. Malley did not deny the dangers of being in violation of international law—he didn’t need to. “The fact is, there is nothing in the resolution that the I.C.C. didn’t know before, or believe before, or for which it could not have turned to any number of similar resolutions passed by the Security Council,” he said. Malley was alluding to, among other things, U.N.S.C. Resolution 465, which passed in 1980, in the waning days of the Carter Administration, and also called civilian settlements “a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” As a legal matter, the U.S.’s position since 1978 has been that settlements are “inconsistent with international law,” Malley said. He added, “That has never been repudiated or changed internally.”

Netanyahu has often insisted that, because of the settlements’ continued entrenchment and expansion, U.S. policy has changed over time. His officials have often referred to President George W. Bush’s letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in April, 2004, which stated that, “in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers,” it was “unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Trump may rush to support Netanyahu on this point. But the plain meaning of the letter, which Ehud Olmert carried into his negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas in 2008, is that border changes must be “agreed” to by both sides. The settlements and changes to the border, in other words, could never be treated separately from a larger agreement. Bush grasped this, and Trump’s national-security team almost certainly will, too. Three years ago, I heard James Mattis, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, say, to an audience at Dartmouth College, that the United States has paid a serious price across the Middle East for being identified with Israel’s occupation.

On Wednesday, in Washington D.C., Secretary of State John Kerry will be delivering a speech reflecting on what he’s achieved, and failed to achieve, in trying to forge a peace deal for the region. In a follow-up interview with Malley, on Tuesday, I learned that, in his speech, Kerry will put forward principles for a comprehensive agreement. Since last winter, French President François Hollande has been pressing for just such a statement, and has warned that if his initiative to convene an international peace conference fails, then France would simply recognize the State of Palestine.

Malley left the impression that Kerry’s sketch would not go far beyond the established principles of action. These, I concluded, were two states—one Palestinian, one “Jewish”—the 1967 border with swaps, and a shared Jerusalem. Would this be enough, given how symbiotic the Israeli and Palestinian economies and infrastructure have become, and how vulnerable both sides are to rejectionists and polarizing terror? On this question, Malley offered some more personal reflections. “We all need to ask ourselves, honestly, if there is something to add beyond the oft-repeated mantra that we all know what the solution is, and consider other ideas, such as the role Jordan might have to play, the precise future relationship between Israel and Palestine, whether of a confederal or other nature, or the final dispensation for Jerusalem,” he said. “Those are important and often neglected questions in officials talks. But one thing we know: we are not going to get to a creative solution, or a solution at all, for that matter, if either side continues to take unilateral steps that are viewed as anathema by the other.”</s>Israel continues to respond to the UN Security Council resolution demanding it stop building settlements in occupied Palestinian territories with a. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he'sat a December 25 Cabinet meeting — but he also apparently instructed his party's lawmakers toOn the other hand, other sources say the UN resolution isin Israel to push even further, bringing up a vote on a deeplya number of outposts. "We will do all it takes so Israel emerges unscathed from thisNetanyahu told his Cabinet, AP reports. He said he had asked the Foreign Ministry tobut offered no more details.Netanyahu has accused US President Barack Obama ofto allow the vote to take place. Thefrom the resolution but did not veto it, as it has similar resolutions in the past."Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, toNetanyahu said in a statement after the resolution.However, the Times of Israel reports that Netanyahu doesn't want the belligerent stance to spread. Meeting with ministers of his Likud party before he met the Cabinet, he asked them toat the end of next month. Trump is seen as more accommodating to Israel than Obama and has called the resolution, which is largely symbolic, "shameful.""I say to the ministers, you need to act with insight, with responsibility and cool-headedness. That means both in action and in words," the prime minister said, the Ynet news website reports."Don't come out now with statements about annexing territory and building in the settlements,on January 20," he said, according to the Times of Israel. Israeli local media report that Netanyahu may be worried that as the Obama administration prepares to exit the White House, they mayOther ministers, including members of Netanyahu's party, called openly for Israel to annex some parts of the West Bank following the Security Council decision. Despite the requests for calm, sources within Israel's Knesset tell the Times of Israel that a controversial bill previously shelved until Trump took office may be brought toThecould be voted on before the inauguration after all.a coalition government source told The Times of Israel December 24. "It's back on the table."</s>FILE -- In this Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Israel is stepping up its attacks on the Obama administration, saying it has proof from Arab sources that the U.S. actively helped craft a U.N. resolution that declared Israeli settlements illegal. A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has "ironclad information" that the White House helped draft the language of the resolution. Citing Arab sources, he says the White House "pushed hard" for its passage. (Dan Balilty/Pool photo via AP, File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday ordered a temporary suspension of relations with the 12 United Nations Security Council members who voted in favor of a resolution which says Israel's settlements in the West Bank "had no legal validity."

Netanyahu personally met with and scolded 10 of the ambassadors from the dozen countries who voted for the resolution that says the settlement constituted "a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security."

Netanyahu says he will not have a working relationship with the governments of the countries – Angola, Britain, China, Egypt, France, Japan, New Zealand, Senegal, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay and Russia.

The United States is not on that list because they abstained from voting on the resolution. Israeli officials say they have proof from Arab sources that the United States helped to craft the resolution they abstained from voting for.

Here’s what other media outlets are saying about the development.

JERUSALEM (AP) – “Israel is stepping up its attacks on the Obama administration, saying it has proof from Arab sources that the U.S. actively helped craft a U.N. resolution that declared Israeli settlements illegal.

David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Israel has "ironclad information" that the White House helped draft the language of the resolution. Citing Arab sources, he said Tuesday that the White House "pushed hard" for its passage.”

Israel braces for more tensions with US as Kerry plans major speech

“Israel is bracing for yet another potential clash with the Obama administration in the final weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, as Secretary of State John Kerry prepares to follow up last week’s anti-settlement U.N. censure with a major address on the U.S. vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Times of Israel and Israel’s Channel 2 report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned about an Obama administration bid to have the Security Council endorse principles for a Palestinian state, and is reaching out to allies in the U.S. Congress and the incoming Trump administration to try and deter further action against Israel.”

“In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel was limiting its "work contacts with the 10 relevant embassies here, as well as travels of officials from Israel to those countries ... until otherwise decided." (Two other countries were added to the list after this story was posted)

These countries were Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay and Spain, said Nahshon.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank along with east Jerusalem — home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians — as parts of their future state. Israel says settlement activities in the territories, which were captured by Israel in the 1967 war, should be agreed upon in future peace talks.”

“The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city.

Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel has also described as “shameful” the decision of its long-standing ally the United States to abstain in the vote rather than wield its veto. The Obama administration is a strong opponent of the settlements.”

Israel urges Jews to leave France as Benjamin Netanyahu continues to lash out after UN vote

“Israel’s defense minister has urged Jews to leave France and move to the Jewish state as the Israeli government continued to lash out at the international community in the wake of a UN resolution criticizing its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Four days after the US allowed the UN Security Council to censure Israeli settlement building, Israel’s government is on a heated rhetorical campaign against the 12 countries that voted against it.”

“Israel on Tuesday intensified its criticism of the Obama administration for allowing the United Nations to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, and vowed to press ahead with new construction in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.

David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel has “ironclad information” that the White House helped draft the resolution, the Associated Press reported. The Obama administration denied the allegation.”</s>Israel’s defence minister has urged Jews to leave France and move to the Jewish state as the Israeli government continued to lash out at the international community in the wake of a UN resolution criticising its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Four days after the US allowed the UN Security Council to censure Israeli settlement building, Israel’s government is on a heated rhetorical campaign against the 14 countries that voted against it.

It has cut aid programmes, summoned ambassadors for angry admonishing and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has apparently decided to snub Theresa May at next month’s Davos meeting in retaliation for Britain’s vote.</s>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told New Zealand's foreign minister that his country's sponsoring of the UN anti-settlement resolution was a "declaration of war".

Mr Netanyahu has also lashed out at President Barack Obama after Friday's Security Council vote, on which the United States' abstention marked a break with tradition, and called the action a "shameful ambush".

The Security Council voted to condemn settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a "flagrant violation of international law" and demanded Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory”, pointing out that the international community views any Israeli construction over the agreed 1967 Green Line as illegal.

According to Haaretz, in a personal phone call Mr Netanyahu told New Zealand foreign minister Murray McCully: "This is a scandalous decision. I'm asking that you not support it and not promote it.

"If you continue to promote this resolution from our point of view it will be a declaration of war. It will rupture the relations and there will be consequences."

Mr McCully reportedly refused to back down and said the resolution was consistent with New Zealand policy.

Israel has recalled its ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal, and cancelled aid to the latter country.

The resolution was put forward by New Zealand, Senegal, Malaysia and Venezuela, taking place just a day after Egypt withdrew it following significant pressure from both Israel and President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr Netanyahu has said Israel will not abide by the ruling.

He added: "At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall ‘occupied territory’."

Defending New Zealand’s vote on Saturday, Mr McCully said: "We have been very open about our view that the [UN Security Council] should be doing more to support the Middle East peace process and the position we adopted today is totally in line with our long established policy on the Palestinian question.

"The vote… should not come as a surprise to anyone and we look forward to continuing to engage constructively with all parties on this issue."

The vote was welcomed by Palestinian representatives. A spokesperson from Palestinan Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' office called it a "big blow to Israeli policy, a unanimous international condemnation of settlements, and a strong support for the two-state solution".

Settlement building – which has accelerated year-on-year under current right-wing Prime Minister Netanyahu – is viewed as one of the major stumbling blocks to a lasting peace deal.

The Jerusalem Local Planning and Construction Committee is expected to approve permits to build 618 new homes in Jewish neighbourhoods across the Green Line today - and at the same time US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to lay out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The speech, less than a month before President Barack Obama leaves office, is likely to be the administration's last word on a decades-old dispute that Mr Kerry had hoped to resolve during his four years as America's top diplomat.

It could also be seen in Israel as another parting shot at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had an especially acrimonious relationship with Mr Obama since they both took office in 2009.

A State Department official said: "We believe that with the two-state solution in peril, it is important to share the deeper understanding we have developed of both sides' bottom lines during intensive consultations in recent years."</s>Israel’s attorney general has ordered police to open a criminal investigation into two unspecified matters involving the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Channel 10 television has said.

A spokeswoman for Israel’s justice ministry declined to respond to the report. Netanyahu has in the past denied wrongdoing in the purchase of submarines from Germany, where media have reported a potential conflict of interest involving his lawyer.

The Channel 10 report on Wednesday said one of the two cases that the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, had been examining was not known to the public.

Israeli attorney general orders inquiry into 'matters relating to Netanyahu' Read more

Netanyahu and his family have been subject to a series of allegations over the past two decades. In 1997, it was decided that there was not enough evidence to charge him over the appointment of an attorney general, though prosecutors said they had a “tangible suspicion” about Netanyahu’s role in the scandal.

According to the New York Times, Netanyahu reacted by saying that he had “erred in the making of the selection, but I did not commit any crime”. He added: “As far as I am concerned, and I think as far as the majority of the public in Israel is concerned, this affair is behind us.”

There followed a series of allegations about the use of public funds in the Netanyahu household. Israeli police recommended in 2000 that Netanyahu – then between his stints as prime minister – be charged with corruption over claims he and his wife, Sara, benefited from more than £60,000 in state gifts.

The attorney general refused, however, saying there were “difficulties with the evidence”, which was not sufficient for a trial.

Netanyahu admitted this year that he had accepted thousands of euros from Arnaud Mimran, who was later convicted of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison.

And in May it was reported that Sara Netanyahu could face fraud charges over the management of the prime minister’s residence. The claims reportedly focused on whether the state was defrauded into paying for private expenses.

She and her husband’s office have denied any wrongdoing. It has been reported that prosecutors are still looking at the case.

</s>JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned a speech by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Wednesday (Dec 28) as biased against Israel and more focused on settlements than Palestinian violence.

Speaking from his office following Kerry's speech in Washington, Netanyahu said the outgoing secretary of state paid only "lip service" to Palestinian violence against Israelis.

"What he did was he spent most of his speech blaming Israel for the lack of peace," Netanyahu said.

He added later that "Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders".

In an earlier statement from Netanyahu's office, the premier said "like the Security Council resolution that Secretary Kerry advanced in the UN, his speech tonight was skewed against Israel".

"For over an hour, Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the root of the conflict - Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries."

Kerry's speech included sharp criticism of Israeli settlement building and came after last week's UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to such activity.

The United States abstained at the Security Council, allowing the resolution to pass 14-0.

The United States and others say continued settlement building is steadily eating away at the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu has accused US President Barack Obama's administration of being behind the resolution, which it denies, and vowed not to abide by it.

Netanyahu said on Wednesday it "reflects a radical shift in US policy towards the Palestinians on final status issues, those issues that we always agreed, the US and Israel, have to be negotiated directly face to face without pre-conditions".
The Attorney General of Israel Avichai Mandelblit orders a criminal investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged corruption in two different cases.