The US House of Representatives passed H.Res.11 today, which will codify strong support and friendship between the United States and Israel through condemnation of a recent, extreme and dangerous anti-Israel UN Security Council-passed resolution, 2334.

     “President Obama’s decision to abstain and not veto Security Council Resolution 2334 seriously undermines the peace process, abandons Israel at a critical hour in its life as a nation, and does serious injury to the historical record,” said Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, during debate on the House Floor. “The pending House resolution repudiates 2334 and makes clear that a durable and sustainable peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will only come through direct bilateral negotiations not one-sided anti-Israel UN resolutions.” Click Here to read Smith’s full statement.

     Administrations have a long, bipartisan history of opposing and vetoing similar one-sided anti-Israel resolutions in international forums—since 1995 there have been 8 one-sided resolutions vetoed. The break with US policy is unprecedented and could unwind decades of work towards two-state peace.

     “With over three thousand years of Jewish history bound up in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it is preposterous to assert that Israel has no legitimacy in defending its connections to this extraordinary heritage,” said Smith of the UN Resolution, which was quietly passed just before a holiday weekend. “Sadly, these kinds of prejudiced and revisionist claims are all too common in the United Nations where UNESCO voted just a couple months ago on measures that excise any mention of Judaism and Christianity’s ancient ties to East Jerusalem.”

     Smith has long been a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism. He is the author of the 2004 legislative amendment that created the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, and the special envoy to lead it. In the early 2000s he led the effort to place fighting anti-Semitism on the agenda of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which led to the adoption of new norms for the 57 countries that belong to the OSCE. He has also chaired 10 hearings on anti-Semitism, including Congress’s first-ever hearings on anti-Semitism. He is co-chairman of the Bi-Partisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism (an organization of Members of Congress) and a member of the steering committee of the Interparliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism.

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