Arab diplomats told Asharq Al-Awsat that US President Donald Trump’s administration was seeking to reduce the number of UN resolutions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through efforts to "merge" a number of them, as well as negotiate a new draft-resolution aimed at condemning Hamas and its terrorist activities. In parallel, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley called on the Security Council to focus on the “terrorist activity” of the Iranian regime, calling for unity “to stop this behavior” before it reached more innocent people around the world. US diplomats have held intensive meetings over the past few days with many permanent delegates to the 193 member states of the General Assembly, including many Arab diplomats, in an effort to convince them that “many biased resolutions against Israel are not useful and have not benefitted the Palestinians and their cause.” “It is therefore desirable that these 16 resolutions be merged in the General Assembly, to limit their number to only four,” the sources quoted some diplomats as saying. The United States has yet to circulate the draft resolution on “condemning Hamas”, but a W estern diplomat quoted a US counterpart as saying that Washington was “optimistic” because the international community’s orientation to condemn Hamas was clear at a meeting of the General Assembly in June. Asharq Al-Awsat learned that the majority of Arab diplomats told their American counterparts that they “abide by what the Palestinian side sees fit in terms of merging the resolutions.” This information emerged on the sidelines of the monthly briefing of the Security Council on “the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian file”. Members heard a report by the UN Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolai Mladenov, who called on Israel to exercise maximum restraint and urged Hamas and the Palestinian armed factions to end the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel. Haley, for her part, said that while the council “remains focused on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, it ignores other very serious conflicts in the Middle East.” “One has in recent months come to the doorstep of Europe and the United States. That is the continued evidence of increased international terrorist activity by the Iranian regime. Iranian assassinations of political opponents are as old as the Islamic Republic itself,” Haley said. “These attempts to murder their political opponents on foreign soil reflect the true nature of the Iranian regime,” she stressed, adding: “We must unite in our efforts to stop this behavior before it reaches more innocent people across the world.”