The largest rabbinic public-policy organization in the United States called the Biden administration’s decision to abstain from a U.N. General Assembly draft resolution that targeted Israel “quite disappointing.”
The text, called “Assistance to Palestinian Refugees,” demands “compensation” for descendants of Palestinian refugees who lost property when they fled their homes, as well as an unlimited “right of return” for Palestinian refugees to a sovereign Israel.
Israel was the sole country that opposed the text, which passed the General Assembly on Tuesday 160-1 with nine abstentions from the United States, Canada, Cameroon, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papa New Guinea and Uruguay.
“The [Biden] administration abstained on an issue of hate and bigotry,” he added. “This is not moral leadership. The previous administration took the morally correct approach, and we did not expect its position to be so rapidly abandoned.”
The Trump administration unequivocally voted against similar resolutions aimed at Israel while the Obama administration traditionally abstained from the same resolution, which comes annually before the General Assembly.