1. Wide shot, Security Council meeting starts
2. Cutaway, Israeli Ambassador Meron Reuben
3. Cutaway, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour
4. Pan right, Security Council vote
5. Med shot, US Ambassador Susan Rice vetoing the resolution
6. Cutaway, delegates
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“Our opposition to the resolution before the Council today should therefore not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity. On the contrary, we reject in the strongest term the legitimacy of continued Israeli settle activity.”
8. Cutaway, Israeli Ambassador Meron Reuben
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“Unfortunately this draft resolution risks the hardening the position of both sides. It could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations and if and when they did resume, to return to the Security Council when they reach an impasse.”
10. Wide shot, Security Council meeting

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The United States (US) today (18 Feb) vetoed a draft resolution in the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Israel’s settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

After the vote, US Ambassador Susan Rice told Council members that her country’s “opposition to the resolution before the Council today should therefore not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity.”

She added that, on the contrary “we reject in the strongest term the legitimacy of continued Israeli settle activity.”

She went on to explain that the “draft resolution risks the hardening the position of both sides” and “could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations and if and when they did resume.”

The draft resolution was sponsored by some 130 countries and backed by the Palestinian leadership.

Today’s veto was the Obama administration’s first vote against a UN resolution.