Protesters rally at US embassy in TA to slam UNSC veto

Demonstrators hold signs reading “stop US-supported occupation," “Veto settlements, vote justice” following US veto of anti-settlement vote.

By BEN HARTMAN
US embassy protest 311 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
US embassy protest 311
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Around 50 protesters rallied outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, to protest the US veto on Friday of a UN Security Council resolution calling Israeli settlements ‘illegal’ and calling for an immediate halt in their construction.
Holding signs reading “stop US-supported occupation” and “Veto settlements, vote justice” and chanting “UN, US, it’s time for B.D.S.”, (Boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel) the demonstrators took issue with what they said is continued American approval and compliance with controversial Israeli policies.
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One protester, 68-year-old Beate Zilversmidt from Holon, held a sign reading “Obama: A real friend doesn’t let me drive drunk.”
Zilversmidt said she came to demonstrate because the veto “gives Israel more time to think we can keep doing whatever we want, that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks because we have this big friend the US supporting us. Israel can’t continue in this way.”
Activist Ronnie Barkan told The Jerusalem Post that the protest is part of “a new campaign pointing a finger at the US complicity in Israeli crimes.”
Barkan called the veto “just a continuation of the same policies of the US, which are going against the consensus of world opinion and civil society protests against Israeli actions. The veto clearly shows how utterly complicit the US is in funding and supporting Israeli crimes and shows again that Israeli apartheid is an American-Israeli project.”