The United Nations General Assembly is holding an emergency session on Thursday to discuss President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
At the meeting, the General Assembly is set to vote on a resolution calling on the Trump administration to withdraw that decision.
The vote comes on the heels of a U.N. Security Council vote seeking to nullify any move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The U.S., which wields veto power on the council, rejected that resolution, effectively killing it.{mosads}
On Wednesday President Trump suggested that the United States could withhold foreign aid for countries that vote in favor of the resolution calling on the U.S. to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In a defiant speech ahead of the General Assembly vote, Riyad Al Maliki, the Palestinian foreign affairs minister, cast the Trump administration’s Jerusalem decision as an affront on regional peace and security that has isolated the U.S. from the international community.
“Does the United States not wonder why it stands isolated in this position?” he said.
In a blunt response, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley warned the international body that the U.S. would remember the vote as a betrayal by the U.N. and that the vote would do nothing to affect the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy there.
“America will put our embassy in Jerusalem. That is what the American people want us to do, and it is the right thing to do,” she said ahead of the vote. “No vote in the United Nations will make any difference on that. But this vote will make a difference in how Americans view the U.N.”
Watch live in the video above.