Congress: 114 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel
Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).
Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for SCONRES 54.
Sponsor: Kirk, Mark Steven (R-IL)
Expresses the sense of Congress that: a sustainable peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will come only through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties; any widespread international recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood outside of the context of such a peace agreement would cause severe harm to the peace process and would likely trigger the implementation of penalties under provisions of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2016 regarding limitations on assistance to support a Palestinian state and uses of funds for assistance for the West Bank and Gaza; efforts by outside bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, to impose an agreement are likely to set back the cause of peace; and the U.S. government should continue to oppose and veto Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues or that are one-sided and anti-Israel; and the U.S. government should continue to support and facilitate the resumption of negotiations without preconditions toward a sustainable peace agreement.
This resolution states Congress's view that Israeli-Palestinian peace must come through direct negotiations between the two sides, not through unilateral Palestinian statehood declarations or UN Security Council action. It commits the U.S. to oppose and veto UN resolutions that impose solutions or are deemed one-sided against Israel, and calls for the U.S. to push both sides toward unconditional talks.
This non-binding resolution signals congressional opposition to Palestinian statehood recognition outside bilateral talks and commits the U.S. to block UN Security Council measures on final-status issues. It constrains potential diplomatic paths and reinforces the precondition that negotiations must be unconditional, which shapes the leverage available to each side.