Country
Israel
Five monthly briefings across Kenya's Council term, each returning to the same unresolved diagnosis: a Two-State solution the Council keeps affirming and no party moves to build.
The Security Council's monthly briefing on "the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question" is one of its oldest standing rituals, and one of its least productive: a report from the Secretary-General's Special Coordinator, a round of national statements, and a recurring judgment that resolution 2334's demands (an end to settlement activity, an end to attacks on civilians, a credible path back to negotiations) remain unmet.
Kenya's four statements on this file across 2022, delivered as its Council term wound toward its close, track that same file through a year of specific deteriorations: escalating violence in Nablus and Jenin, the collapse of a fragile August ceasefire's calm, twin bombings in Jerusalem in November, and a UNRWA school in Gaza found to sit above a tunnel.
Across all four, Kenya holds the same even-handed line: explicit condemnation of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other militant groups' attacks on Israeli civilians, paired with explicit condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion, demolitions, and evictions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem. Kenya's own formulation of resolution 2334 as "propositional not prescriptive" (first stated in September, repeated in December) captures its central critique of the file itself: the Council keeps stating the destination without compelling anyone to travel toward it.
Kenya's final statement on this file, delivered December 19, 2022, closes with an explicit marker: "this is Kenya's last engagement on this file before the end of our two-year tenure in the Security Council." It reaffirms Kenya's commitment to the Two-State solution and thanks Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland by name, the same official whose briefings anchor every entry in this file across the year.
Independent Sources for This Introduction
Contemporary Reporting
Chronology
| 2016-12-23 | event | Security Council adopts resolution 2334 The Council adopts resolution 2334, reaffirming that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have 'no legal validity' and constitute a 'flagrant violation' of international law. The resolution becomes the fixed reference point against which the Council's own recurring monthly briefings on the Middle East measure progress or its absence, a measure that, across every Kenyan statement on this file, keeps returning the same verdict: 'propositional not prescriptive,' a resolution whose implementation depends on a political will neither party has supplied. |
| 2021-05-16 | Photograph | Security Council VTC Open Debate on the Situation in the Middle East |
| 2022-08-25 | Statement | Middle East and the Palestinian Question: Statement During Monthly Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative |
| 2022-09-28 | Statement | Middle East (Resolution 2334 Implementation): Statement During Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Michael Kiboino, Deputy Permanent Representative |
| 2022-11-28 | Statement | Middle East and the Palestinian Question: Statement During Monthly Briefing and Consultations Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative |
| 2022-12-19 | Statement | Middle East (Resolution 2334 Implementation): Kenya's Final Statement Before Term End Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative |
| 2023-10-25 | Statement | Women, Peace and Security: Statement to the UN Security Council Annual Open Debate Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |