The United States on Saturday vetoed an Arab-sponsored draft resolution in the UN Security Council that would have condemned Israel's deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, calling the text "unbalanced" and "biased" against the Jewish state.
"The draft doesn't display an even-handed characterisation of the recent events in Gaza," US Ambassador John Bolton said, referring to what Israel said was an accidental shelling that killed 19 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, in the Gaza town of Beit Hanun.
"We are disturbed at the language of the resolution that is in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated," he added. "Such language does not further the cause of peace and its unacceptability to the United States in previous resolutions is well known."
As one of the council's five permanent members along with Britain, China, France and Russia, the United States has veto power which it has now used 82 times, often to shield the Jewish state from censure.
Its previous use of the veto was in July to block a Qatari-sponsored draft resolution that would have condemned Israel's military onslaught in Gaza as "disproportionate force" and would have demanded a halt to Israeli operations in the territory.
Ten of the council's 15 members voted in favour the amended text, introduced by Qatar on behalf of Arab member states, and four - Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia - abstained.
Explaining her decision to abstain, Britain's deputy UN Ambassador Karen Pierce said: "We were not able to conclude that the draft resolution was sufficiently balanced nor reflected the complexity of the current situation."
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