warned israel of its abstention. we ve known for some time the palestinians were intent on moving forward with a settlement resolution and i advised the prime minister repeatedly that further settlement activity only invited u.n. action. reporter: as prime minister benjamin netanyahu concluded his response to secretary kerry, palestinian president abbas released a statement of his own saying that he s also ready to resume peace negotiations if israel stops building settlements. doug. thank you, rich. prime minister netanyahu s reaction to today s speech by secretary kerry comes as tempers have flared since the vote on friday including accusations that the united states had been planning the security council resolution all along. john huddy reports from jerusalem. reporter: there was no love lost between israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and u.s. secretary of state john kerry. israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of
presidents, trump has jumped into both feet into one of the most difficult foreign policy issues for any president, the israeli-palestinian conflict. the president-elect has been working the phones, calling world leaders to scuttle an anti-israel resolution at the u.n. reporter: just hours before the u.n. security council was set to vote on a resolution, calling for israel to stop building settlements, calling them a violation of international law, the ballot was abruptly called off. cnn learned that president obama was prepared to let that resolution pass, either by abstaining or voting in favor of that. the u.s. has seen settlements as an obstacle to the peace process, but has never voted against israel in a u.n. vote. this is really a parting shot at israel s prime minister beng ming netanyahu, and the
republicans, put his thumb in the president s eye in a very personal way. is this one last kidney shot before barack obama leaves the scene? yeah, i m not sure how productive this is, jim. you know, the very first ask from the obama administration to the netanyahu administration back in 2009 was to stop building settlements. this is sort of like a book end to that. they weren t able to get anywhere on that issue. partly because they don t have a good personal relationship. i will say, though, i think it s worth saying that president obama has been blamed for, you know, souring relations with israel. and i think that to a degree, there has been friction, but it s worth repeating that president obama funded the iron dome missile defense shield to the tune of about $1 billion. just this september, the obama administration reached a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package with israel. so it s a mixed picture here in terms of whether or not he and
response to the security council resolution and nbc joins us now from honolulu. what are you hearing from there? reporter: even though president obama has been out here on vacation, he had several meetings with his national security team and that was how he came to this decision. you know, the position for the u.s., they always had the same position on the settlement activity. all president obama had to do was vote no to veto the resolution, but he abstained. this means the resolution means that israel will have to stop building settlements on the occupy palestinian territory. keep in mind since 2009, israel is settling on the west bank. there were 100,000 and now it increased to more than 500,000, a huge, huge number. president-elect donald trump has been pushing hard for the u.s. to vote no on this vote.
tensions within that family, but when someone from outside the family criticizes, well, then the united states is always there to defend israel. and so it was in 2011, when president obama s ambassador to the u.n. vetoed a resolution condemning the construction and expansion of israeli settlements in an occupied palestinian territory. egypt recently introduced another version of that resolution which was scheduled to come to the vote at the united nations today at 3:00 p.m. and this time, the united states had not taken a public position on that resolution. this was clearly a message tole israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu that the united states was frustrated with his refusal to reconsider any aspect on building settlements. the obama administration might have hoped that netanyahu would reach out to president obama to ask to formally request that the united states veto that resolution and perhaps in that discussion often something to