The UN Security Council has delayed a contentious vote on a draft resolution demanding that Israel halt settlements as President-elect Donald Trump weighed in and said the United States should veto the measure.
Egypt requested that the vote be postponed, one day after submitting the draft text to the council, a move that triggered immediate calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a US veto to block the resolution.
A similar resolution was vetoed by the United States in 2011, and it remained unclear whether Washington would shift stance this time, possibly abstaining to allow the measure to pass, although without US support.
Israel launched a frantic lobbying effort to pressure Egypt to drop the bid and reached out to its supporters in the United States and at the Security Council for support.
No new time-frame was announced for the vote, which had been scheduled yesterday. Arab ambassadors held an emergency meeting at the United Nations to press Egypt to move ahead with a vote but an Arab League committee decided after meeting in Cairo to continue talks on the fate of the motion.