Panetta Defended Increasing Settlements on the West Bank

Jimmy Panetta's first press release as a member of Congress in 2017 announced that he had voted to criticize the UN resolution calling on Israel to "cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory." House Resolution 11, called the UN Security Council UN Resolution 2334 "one-sided and anti-Israel".

The UN  resolutionm passed  on a 14-0 vote, with the Obama Adminstration allowing it to pass.

Panetta's position was inconsistent with US policy. President Obama's Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, explained:

"the United States’ long-standing position that Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 undermines Israel’s security, harms the viability of a negotiated two-state outcome, and erodes prospects for peace and stability in the region.

Today, the Security Council reaffirmed its established consensus that settlements have no legal validity. The United States has been sending the message that the settlements must stop – privately and publicly – for nearly five decades, through the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the UN resolution.